Epigraphs: The White-Luck Warrior
Opening Quote The heavens, the sun, the whole of nature is a corpse. Nature is given over to the spiritual, and indeed to spiritual subjectivity, thus the course of nature is everywhere broken in upon by miracles. —HEGEL, LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY III Chapter One: The Meorn Wilderness Without rules, madness. Without discipline, death. —NANSUR MILITARY MARCH Chapter Two: The Istyuli Plains We belittle what we cannot bear. We make figments out of fundamentals, all in the name of preserving our own peculiar fancies. The best way to secure one’s own deception is to accuse others of deceit. —HATATIAN, EXHORTATIONS It is not so much the wisdom of the wise that saves us from the foolishness of the fools as it is the latter’s inability to agree. —AJENCIS, THE THIRD ANALYTIC OF MEN Chapter Three: The Meorn Wilderness The bondage we are born into is the bondage we cannot see. Verily, freedom is little more than the ignorance of tyranny. Live long enough, and you will see: Men resent not the whip so much as the hand that wields it. —TRIAMIS I, JOURNALS AND DIALOGUES Chapter Four: The Istyuli Plains All ropes come up short if pulled long enough. All futures end in tragedy. —CENEIAN PROVERB And they forged counterfeits from our frame, creatures vile and obscene, who hungered only for violent congress. These beasts they loosed upon the land, where they multiplied, no matter how fierce the Ishroi who hunted them. And soon Men clamoured at our gates, begging sanctuary, for they could not contend with the creatures. “They wear your face,” the penitents cried. “This calamity is your issue.” But we were wroth, and turned them away, saying, “These are not our Sons. And you are not our Brothers.” —ISÛPHIRYAS Chapter Five: The Western Three Seas As death is the sum of all harms, so is murder the sum of all sins. —CANTICLES 18:9, THE CHRONICLE OF THE TUSK The world has its own ways, sockets so deep that not even the Gods can dislodge them. No urn is so cracked as Fate. —ASANSIUS, THE LIMPING PILGRIM Chapter Six: The Meorn Wilderness Everything is concealed always. Nothing is more trite than a mask. —AJENCIS, THE THIRD ANALYTIC OF MEN If you find yourself taken unawares by someone you thought you knew, recall that the character revealed is as much your own as otherwise. When it comes to Men and their myriad, mercenary natures, revelation always comes in twos. —MANAGORAS, ODE TO THE LONG-LIVED FOOL Chapter Seven: The Istyuli Plains ... and they scoff at heroes, saying that Fate serves disaster to many, and feasts to few. They claim that willing is but a form of blindness, and conceit of beggars who think they wrest alms from the jaws of lions. The Whore alone, they say, decides who is brave and who is rash, who will be hero and who will be fool. And so they dwell in a world of victims. —QUALLAS, ON THE INVITIC SAGES Ever do Men use secrets to sort and measure those they love, which is why they are less honest with their brothers and more guarded with their friends. —CASIDAS, ANNALS OF CENEI Chapter Eight: The Western Three Seas Complexity begets ambiguity, which yields in all ways to prejudice and avarice. Complication does not so much defeat Men as arm them with fancy. —AJENCIS, THE THIRD ANALYTIC OF MEN Chapter Nine: The Istyuli Plains The shape of virtue is inked in obscenity. —AINONI PROVERB Chapter Ten: The Istyuli Plains There is morality and there is cowardice. The two are not to be confused, even though in appearance and effect they are so often the same. —EKYANNUS I, 44 EPISTLES If the Gods did not pretend to be human, Men would recoil from them as spiders. —ZARATHINIUS, A DEFENCE OF THE ARCANE ARTS Chapter Eleven: Momemn This one thing every tyrant will tell you: nothing saves more lives than murder. —MEROTOKAS, THE VIRTUE OF SIN No two prophets agree. So to spare our prophets their feelings, we call the future a whore. —ZARATHINIUS, A DEFENCE OF THE ARCANE ARTS Chapter Twelve: Kûniüri Skies are upended, poured as milk into the tar of night. Cities become pits of fire. The last of the wicked stand with the last of the righteous, lamenting the same woe. One Hundred and Forty-Four Thousand, they shall be called, for this is their tally, the very number of doom. —ANONYMOUS, THE THIRD REVELATION OF GANUS THE BLIND Know what your slaves believe, and you will always be their master. —AINONI PROVERB Chapter Thirteen: The Istyuli Plains Gods are epochal beings, not quite alive. Since the Now eludes them, they are forever divided. Sometimes nothing blinds souls more profoundly than the apprehension of the Whole. Men need recall this when they pray. —AJENCIS, THE THIRD ANALYTIC OF MEN Chapter Fourteen: Momemn The truth of all polity lies in the ruins of previous ages, for there we see the ultimate sum of avarice and ambition. Seek ye to rule for but a day, because little more shall be afforded you. As the Siqû are fond of saying, Cû’jara Cinmoi is dead. —GOTAGGA, PARAPOLIS Any fool can see the limits of seeing, but not even the wisest know the limits of knowing. Thus is ignorance rendered invisible, and are all Men made fools. —AJENCIS, THE THIRD ANALYTIC OF MEN. Chapter Fifteen: The Library of Sauglish In life, your soul is but the extension of your body, which reaches inward until it finds its centre in spirit. In death, your body is but the extension of your soul, which reaches outward until it finds it circumference in flesh. In both instances, all things appear the same. Thus are the dead and the living confused. —MEMGOWA, THE BOOK OF DIVINE ACTS Yet the soul lingers like a second smell A sailor wrecked at sea, it clings Lest it sink and drown in Hell. —GIRGALLA, EPIC OF SAUGLISH Interlude: Ishuäl The heroes among us, they are the true slaves. Thrust against the limits of mortality, they alone feel the bite of their shackles. So they rage. So they fight. We only have as much freedom as we have slack in our chains. Only those who dare nothing are truly free. —SUÖRTAGAL, EPIMEDITATIONS Category:The White-Luck Warrior